Boycotts of Arizona in reaction to the state’s controversial immigration law SB-1070 are having a trickle-down effect on a lot of businesses, including a local indie videogame developer.

Mojo-Bone Software Studios is on the cusp of producing its biggest title to-date, but the company is now having trouble luring the 30 cast members needed for the production to Arizona, according to AZ Family.com.

As Mojo-Bone’s Adam Goldman explained, “They don't want to come to be harassed and they don't want to be associated with anything in Phoenix right now.”

Saying that he has to do what’s best for his family and staff, Goldman is moving production of Project Blue Ghost to Los Angeles, and taking the game’s $2.0 million dollar budget with him.

The game developer hopes the controversy will pass and wishes to remind people that, “The citizens of Arizona didn't do anything wrong, the hard-working men and women of Arizona aren't to blame for this.”

Kudos to this game company for doing what's right. Arizona's Economy and reputation deserve to suffer after passing this racist, ridiculous law.

Also, Shame on ANYONE who defends this law, because, no matter how you try to rationalize it, it boils down to the fact that if you look Mexican, the cops can pull you over, harass you, and even arrest you, if you don't have proof of your citizenship on you at all times. It's pathetic.

Not true. The law does not allow a cop to pull you over just because you look Mexican. Plus, if you have a driver's license on you (which you damn well better if you're driving a car), the law presumes you're legal.

On topic, Mojo-Bone doesn't appear to be moving the production out of AZ because of ethics but rather money.

As the developer itself said, “The citizens of Arizona didn't do anything wrong, the hard-working men and women of Arizona aren't to blame for this.”

The thing is that the way this law is written makes it very abusable. The officer has a lot of discretion and while I'm sure the majority of officers will follow the intent of the law all it takes is a small subset of men like Joe Ariapo to really cause some grief and harm to a protected class of American's, hispanics.

Don't kid yourself, AE. If someone looks Mexican, the police will stop them and harass them. All it takes is for them to make up some irrellevant excuse. "He swerved a little in his lane." "He was driving just a little too fast." "Signaled too late prior to a turn." "He didn't come to a full stop at a stop sign"

All of these excuses are perfectly valid, and are easily used, even if said driver wasn't breaking any traffic laws at all, because it's the Cop's word against the drivers. That being said, the police can and will pull whoever over for whatever they want, at which point, they can see that a person has brown skin, and ask for their papers. If this person can't provide their proof of citizenship, even if they ARE a citizen, they can be arrested. This law is going to result in everyone who even looks MARGINALLY Hispanic being forced to carry around their immigration papers, just to make sure that they aren't arrested at a cop's whim.

Nevermind the fact that this law was written by a Lawyer with Neo-Nazi and White Supremecist ties, which should be enough to understand that this law is racist as all hell.

Give a group of people power, and they will abuse it. Not all of them no, but enough that it will cause problems. This will be compounded the police officer's pattern of sticking together and shielding bad apples. Police have an institutional problem with abuse of power that it take external controls to stop from happening.

Of course it does. Racial profiling and anti-immigrant witch hunts are epidemic in Arizona, particularly in the showboating raids of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is currently under multiple federal investigations. While the County Sheriff's department is not the focus of 1070, it IS the model for it.

One does not have to provide a better solution to point out what a bad solution is, and a bad solution is not automaticly better then no solution at all.

I heard this exact argument going on in philly a few months back over a crewfew law. The DoJ admitted that crewfew laws are expensive and have zero effect on crime. Yet one of the recurring arguments in favor of it was 'do you have a better idea? we have to do something!', even though the law did nothing other then cost the taxpayer.

Of course the actual solution involved expensive things like more officers on the street (similiar to illegal immigration could be curbed significantly by putting more agents and resources on the boarder) with the typical response 'but I do not want to pay for that!'.

Cheap useless solutions that curtail rights are worse then not doing anything at all.

Though I disagree that an argument is pointless unless alternatives are presented. I find value in examining a law on it's own merits sometimes rather then in relation to other potential solutions. As I said, sometimes no solution is better then a bad solution. I think there are some potentially good pieces of this law, but they stuck in some really dangerous parts that make the whole package worse then nothing.

Fine businesses that employ illegal immigrants into oblivion, fine landlords who house illegal immigrants into oblivion, and make knowingly helping illegal immigrants a crime. (Not necessarily a felony, but make it so people aren't willing to knowingly help illegals.)

Make it so that people who aid and abet illegals are afraid of doing so. Make it so that employers are afraid to hire illegals.

If you eliminate the reason for most illegal immigrants to come to America, that being jobs, money, and a future, they won't risk their lives coming over.

I'm just stating that you can't enforce these laws based on Race alone. You need to either treat everyone equally or find a better way to handle it. Defining "Reasonable Suspicion" as someone who looks like an immigrant is a huge problem that opens the door to racial profiling.

The drug trade is a sticky subject, but those immigrants should be treated the same way anyone else caught with drugs or caught being involved in the drug trade are.

They should be imprisoned and punished.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the current AZ law punish drug traffickers and low income minimum wage immigrants alike? And, as an added bonus, the current law also promises to increase harassment and police questioning of anyone who even LOOKS like an immigrant, even if they are legal citizens.

The Drug Traffickers are going to traffic in drugs regardless of this law. We'd need a larger federal crackdown to reign them in using the current laws regarding firearms and drugs. Let's not forget that Mexicans aren't the ONLY people in the drug industry, so it's not like this law will really affect it any more than a law that would punish and harass white people for looking white.

We don't need a law that encourages racial profiling to succeed in curbing illegal immigration. We can achieve all of our goals without paying attention to how someone looks to determine if they are illegal or not.

I think, in my law, that I would make it clear that the person had to be undeniably aware that the person was illegal, and that the act would have to be an act that would involve assisting the Illegal Immigrant in a way that intentionall subverts our immigration law. Being a good Samaritan or doing harmless favors for them wouldn't merit the punishment. Helping hide them from Federal Authorities or giving them false documentation, etc.. would be the offending acts.

Which is exactly what this law does. As I read and interpret the writen law, driving someone to church doesn't count unless the driver is already in violation of a criminal offense (and knows or recklessly disregards the fact that the passenger is an illegal).

The problem isn't illegal immigration. The problem is that the vast majority of people who would legally immigrate given the opportunity are prohibited from doing so.

I'm going to post a rather illuminating flowchart. It's from Reason magazine, so the "armchair libertarian" contingent (for the record, I'm fairly certain the actual Libertarian Party is all for immigration reform, but I don't care enough to look and make sure) should have no problem with it.

The problem is the illegal nature of the people flooding in and all the secondary effects you get from being an illegal alien. If there are sane paths then you end up with assimilated tax paying immigrants that will actually work with police rather then being little more then kindling for crime syndicates.

Illegal immigrants fuel pent up demand, and we are a very captialistic nation... where there is a demand people will find ways to fill it, even when their methods are illegal. We can either control the flow or leave the control up to the criminals.

This may be me instead of Val, but laws which are easy to abuse like this one are not the way to do it. The main problem which gives us so many illegals is that the system to become a citizen is so convoluted and complicated, and takes so damn long that it's easier to just jump the border.

The system needs to be streamlined and easier, though not os easy we get flooded with people.

Or even a reluctant one. One of the problems with this law is that people can sue law enforcement if they don't believe the law is being enforced adequately. Even a police officer who doesn't believe there's a case may feel pressure to engage in racial profiling out of fear that the department will be sued if he doesn't -- and even if the lawsuit is frivolous and the PD likely to win it, that's still yet another diversion of our very limited resources.

Yes, and how dare GP post a story about a developer doing what they have to do to get people to work for them without it turning into a half-bent screaming match among the armchair libertarians in the comments.

I hope we get another story about a study claiming video games make kids violent so we can yell about incorrect methodologies and bad sample groups without actually reading the article where we might have learned that the researchers never claimed any causation! Those are my favourite.

"I hope we get another story about a study claiming video games make kids violent so we can yell about incorrect methodologies and bad sample groups without actually reading the article where we might have learned that the researchers never claimed any causation! Those are my favourite."

lol, so I'm not the only one who noticed! But that's off topic...

In any case, it's not like cops don't already racially profile. If a white dude and a black dude are both driving down the street with a busted tail light, who gets pulled over? The black dude of course.

How dare they question a state's right to pass illegal laws! Mobs should make policy, not that stupid consititution! And how dare they vote with their dollars and move to states that have laws they prefer! Everyone should unquestioningly agree with their local laws and not try to act like free citizens! Democracy is for the mobs! If you are not on the side of the mob you should just accept your lot and do what the popular people tell you to do.

Actually yes, how dare we. Considering we're not granted that power by the consititution, our police force isn't trained to enforce it and doesn't have the tools or resources necessary to do it properly and has already been shown to be made up of a bunch of racist asses that can't see past skin color (owing to the countless civil suits by citizens who've been arrested and deported by Arpaigo's der squad even before this law was suggested).

I'm curious, deuxhero, do you live in Arizona? Are you familiar with a gentleman named Joe Arpaio?

The problem with the law is that it's open to abuse. It may say that it can't be used for racial profiling, but the bottom line is that it will.

The Chiefs of Police of both Phoenix and Tucson oppose the law. It stretches them too thinly and distracts them from their jobs. Furthermore, it puts them in a world of legal hurt -- if they enforce 1070, they're going to get sued for racial profiling, and if they don't, they're going to get sued for not enforcing it.

And when I say police are being stretched too thinly: we have an election in two weeks. And if we don't pass a tax increase, a lot of them are going to be laid off.

"How DARE they pass a law that has officers ask someone they must already have stoped for a legal reason..."

Incorrect. Police have the authority to stop anyone they suspect to be an illegal immigrant, regardless of weather they did something wrong or not. In other words, being of Latino, or of any decent that appears to be Latino, is a perfectly good excuse to pull you over. Below is pulled from the actual Law

S.B. 1070

"ARTICLE 8. ENFORCEMENT OF IMMIGRATION LAWS

E. Notwithstanding any other law, a peace officer may lawfully stop any person who is operating a motor vehicle if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe the person is in violation of any civil traffic law and this section"

Unfortunatly in this case, it will probably be a very abusable mechanic. They have taken a real problem with uncomfortable solutions and came up with an 'easy' one that the 'correct' people are behind (i.e. those who are unlikely to be effected by it).

People tend to prefer new laws rather then properly funding existing ones. While immigration law has its problems, even now it could be doing a lot better if we had more officers and equipment on the ground to enforce them. That however costs money, and people like cheap solutions that require nothing of them.

Easy if you don't look like an Anglo, African American or Native American your it! Seriously, my roommate has been pulled over 2 times (he drives like a grandmother, will NOT pass a yellow light and he's been ticketed both times for running a red) and each time they made him open his car, examined everything, etc.

Oh and he was born here to parents who were born here to parents who were legal immigrants from south america (no not mexico there are other countries down there).

Shout box

Infophile: @Matt: Apparently Dan Aykroyd actually is involved. We don't know how yet, though, but he's apparently going to be in the movie in some way.08/02/2015 - 4:17am

Mattsworkname: I still hold that not having the origonal cast invovled in any way hurts this movie, and unless the 4 actresses in the lead roles can some how measure up to the comic timing of the origonal cast, i just don't see it being a success08/02/2015 - 12:46am

Mattsworkname: Mecha: regardless of what you think of it, GB 2 was a finanical success and for it time did well with audiances ,even if it wasnt as popular as the first08/02/2015 - 12:45am

MechaTama31: I think they're better off trying to do something different, than trying to be exactly the same and having every little difference held up as a shortcoming. Uncanny valley.08/01/2015 - 11:57pm

MechaTama31: Having the original cast didn't do much for... that pink-slimed atrocity which we must never speak of.08/01/2015 - 11:56pm

Mattsworkname: Andrew: If the new ghostbusters bombs, I cant help but feel it'll be cause it removed the origonal cast and changed the formula to much08/01/2015 - 8:31pm

Andrew Eisen: Not the best look but that appears to be a PKE meter hanging from McCarthy's belt.08/01/2015 - 7:34pm

Mattsworkname: You know what game is a lot of fun? rocket league. It' s a soccer game thats actually fun to play cause your A Freaking CAR!08/01/2015 - 7:02pm

Mattsworkname: Nomad colossus did a little video about it, showing the world and what can be explored in it's current form. It's worth a look, and he uses text for commentary as not to break the immerison08/01/2015 - 5:49pm

Mattsworkname: I feel some more mobility would have made it more interesting and I feel that a larger more diverse landscape with better graphiscs would help, but as a concept, it interests me08/01/2015 - 5:48pm

Andrew Eisen: Huh. I guess I'll have to check out a Let's Play to get a sense of the game.08/01/2015 - 5:47pm

Mattsworkname: It did, I found the idea of exploring a world at it's end, exploring the abandoned city of a disappeared alien race and the planets various knooks and crannies intriqued me.08/01/2015 - 5:46pm

Andrew Eisen: Did it appeal to you? If so, what did you find appealing?08/01/2015 - 5:43pm

Mattsworkname: Its an interesting concept, but it's not gonna appeal to everyone thats for sure,08/01/2015 - 5:40pm

Andrew Eisen: That sounds horrifically boring. Doesn't sound like an interesting use of its time dilation premise either. 08/01/2015 - 5:36pm

Mattsworkname: an observer , seeing this sorta frozen world and being able to explore without any restriction other then time. no enimes, no threats, just the chance to explore08/01/2015 - 5:34pm